"Coming in at #12 on my list: Alphonso Ribeiro. Who the fuck is that? I have no idea."
― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 23 October 2013 21:01 (ten years ago) link
How would you style John Cage's 4'33" if you usually put the titles of short works (like songs) in quotation marks? Wiki seems to italicize it.
― Matt Groening's Cousin (Leee), Saturday, 26 October 2013 22:01 (ten years ago) link
I think the rule would say to use '4'33"'.
― pplains, Saturday, 26 October 2013 23:27 (ten years ago) link
You mean switch from double quotes to single quotes?
― Matt Groening's Cousin (Leee), Saturday, 26 October 2013 23:40 (ten years ago) link
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300136999
italicized throughout
― j., Saturday, 26 October 2013 23:54 (ten years ago) link
since there are three movements in it you are justified in italicizing it as you would other works with three movements, as opposed to songs, it seems to me
― zvookster, Sunday, 27 October 2013 00:35 (ten years ago) link
Nothing like editing a story for space/clarity and somehow adding 100 words.
― pplains, Monday, 18 November 2013 16:14 (ten years ago) link
Improved clarity accounts for the extra words. Now remove the extraneous words and bob's your uncle. Of course, the story will lose some of its effect if you pare it down to bare bones.
― Aimless, Monday, 18 November 2013 19:56 (ten years ago) link
should it be "...provides a leveller playing field" or "...provides a more level playing field"? I prefer the first, but I wonder if the second is more correct.
― ʎɐpunsunɾɐɔ (cajunsunday), Saturday, 7 December 2013 14:08 (ten years ago) link
second one sounds better to me
― one sexual away from HOOOOOOOOOOMO (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 7 December 2013 14:10 (ten years ago) link
or eliminate both -- it's a cliche.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 7 December 2013 14:12 (ten years ago) link
Alfred OTM. So go for No. 2 if you have no choice, that's the way it's said.
― pplains, Saturday, 7 December 2013 14:17 (ten years ago) link
I mean, a field is level or it's not. Saying some fields are leveler than other fields or that they are more level when the speaker really means they've been leveled better or that they are flatter -- it's not a pleasant situation to be in as a copywriter.
― pplains, Saturday, 7 December 2013 14:21 (ten years ago) link
i think you're talking about scalar/absolute adjectives? empty, bald, pregnant. level.
― sweat pea (La Lechera), Saturday, 7 December 2013 16:02 (ten years ago) link
yeah you're right. level. thanks guys.
― ʎɐpunsunɾɐɔ (cajunsunday), Saturday, 7 December 2013 16:18 (ten years ago) link
I can easily assign a meaning to "more level", and I can't think of a better way to express that meaning (I'm ignoring the "playing field" part of the idiom here). I'm sure I say things like "more linear" all the time, even if some people would consider that infelicitous.
― freemen (on the) space (seandalai), Sunday, 8 December 2013 03:11 (ten years ago) link
ok "flatter" conveys a similar meaning but pplains would presumably argue that a field is either flat or not flat and we're back where we started
― freemen (on the) space (seandalai), Sunday, 8 December 2013 03:12 (ten years ago) link
http://www.hum.uu.nl/medewerkers/a.toledo/papers/Absolute_Relative_Variance.pdf
― bamcquern, Sunday, 8 December 2013 04:36 (ten years ago) link
"Flat" doesn't necessarily mean "horizontal," does it?
― Matt Groening's Cousin (Leee), Sunday, 8 December 2013 05:06 (ten years ago) link
second option, and no there's nothing wrong with the concept of a more level playing field
― mind totally brown (darraghmac), Sunday, 8 December 2013 09:33 (ten years ago) link
Late to this party. I would encourage the construction "more nearly level", because level is a state more than a quality. To my mind, either something is 'level' or it is 'not level'.
― Aimless, Sunday, 8 December 2013 19:35 (ten years ago) link
People who say they seek "a more level playing field" are actually requesting "a playing field that has been leveled more than others" or "leveled better than it has in the past."
There's no "leveler" field. Maybe "level" isn't an absolute description of something, but tell that to my wife after I've tried to instal a shelf on the wall.
― pplains, Sunday, 8 December 2013 20:17 (ten years ago) link
In past use, "leveler" was a noun, referring to a person who wanted to eliminate inequalities of rank in society.
― Aimless, Sunday, 8 December 2013 20:20 (ten years ago) link
They were this weird breed of green bubble-headed people who couldn't keep their balance.
― pplains, Sunday, 8 December 2013 20:37 (ten years ago) link
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/396653/Levellers.jpg
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Sunday, 8 December 2013 20:46 (ten years ago) link
Dont understand the prob with degrees of level.
― mind totally brown (darraghmac), Sunday, 8 December 2013 20:48 (ten years ago) link
You'd agree that the cliffs of Dover might be more level than the cliffs of Moher?
― Aimless, Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:08 (ten years ago) link
in this case - and i want to put the grammatical element to one side - let us imagine two football pitches. Pitch A has an incline running west to east of 2 degrees. Pitch B has an incline running east to west of 9 degrees. Pitch A is clearly "more level" than Pitch B, even tho neither of them are absolutely level.
― fashionably coughed (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:12 (ten years ago) link
Pitch A is also "more level" in the advantage it offers to the team playing from the higher end, altho most team sports try to minimize that advantage by changing ends at some point.
― fashionably coughed (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:14 (ten years ago) link
imagine two carpenters' apprentices having their work judged by their master
― j., Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:14 (ten years ago) link
'closer to level' > 'more level'
― mookieproof, Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:15 (ten years ago) link
And home team might water according to preferred style of play obv
Ok i think thats that cleared up now
― mind totally brown (darraghmac), Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:16 (ten years ago) link
This merry bandiment around what is better than 'more level' seems to me to be ignoring that 'more level' appears as part of a whole that simply is not to be fucked with in the ways suggested
― mind totally brown (darraghmac), Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:17 (ten years ago) link
mookie i can see how that construction might be logically preferable, sort of, but it's clumsier-sounding than "more level" imo
― fashionably coughed (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:17 (ten years ago) link
Pitch A definitely closer to being level than Pitch B, that's for sure.
xp before mookie's
― pplains, Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:17 (ten years ago) link
"...levels the playing field somewhat"
― Pre-Madonna (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Sunday, 8 December 2013 21:48 (ten years ago) link
I don't know if this is exactly the right thread, but I am confused by the use of "vintage" to seemingly mean "classic" (as in "this US Open performance has been vintage Nadal" or "this essay is vintage Didion") Is this a slangy usage that became mainstream or does the word "vintage" have a shade of meaning I'm missing? I know the word originally comes from wine ("vin" as in "vinyard"), so the "vintage" was the harvest, which in turn came to mean the year. Then I guess from this it somehow got bastardized to just mean "old."
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 16:16 (ten years ago) link
get a dictionary homie
― j., Wednesday, 12 February 2014 16:19 (ten years ago) link
I don't know where else to put this:
http://www.elezea.com/2014/02/lorem-ipsum-gone-wrong/
― ∞, Monday, 24 February 2014 17:50 (ten years ago) link
here here herey herey herey
♥
― eeeLuvium (Leee), Monday, 24 February 2014 18:08 (ten years ago) link
blah blah blah blah blah blahbalbvh alvhbahv albvha blah,says Lungani Zama
― Ewan Huzami (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Monday, 24 February 2014 21:48 (ten years ago) link
i would have layvsi would have lain
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:11 (ten years ago) link
"to lie" being the infinitive
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:12 (ten years ago) link
THIRD CONDITIONAL LAIN
― conrad, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:19 (ten years ago) link
lain
― Eyeball Kicks, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:20 (ten years ago) link
lain--lay is a transitive verb
― waterbabies (waterface), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:21 (ten years ago) link
c1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 286 Þei han so longe leyen in so gret cursinge.
― μ thant (seandalai), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:23 (ten years ago) link
Apparently "have lay" is attested up to the 17th century or so.
― μ thant (seandalai), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:24 (ten years ago) link
yes, third conditional, thanks
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:25 (ten years ago) link
Larger Q is why you would use a verb w/so many frikken rules
― waterbabies (waterface), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 14:33 (ten years ago) link